Trouble Will Find Me
by tripodion
Summary: Sometimes he'll go away from me, and I will bring him back. Sometimes I'll barricade myself in my cellar, and he will trudge through the howling wind and salty rain to come down the stairs, hold out his hand amid the floating fire, and lead me back home.
1. I Should Live in Salt

**I: And you said you felt a little guilt, but the chorus is, 'I should live in salt for leaving you behind'.**

**M: **_**Honestly, that was just kind of an abstract image or something in my head and I don't know. I think Lot's wife turned to salt when she looked back at the city. I think they used to pack bodies in salt. So there's not specifically any meaning into it directly, but it seemed like a bad thing to have to live in salt. A lot of my lyrics are approximate meaning without me knowing why they sound right.**_

**Sooooo this is a thing now. I was listening to The National's beautiful, flawless new album "Trouble Will Find Me" and I decided to create a series of one-shots or short stories based on each song and featuring characters from Sherlock.**

**This chapter is for the first track, "I Should Live in Salt" (youtube watch?v=JK-EF9fAHIY). The excerpt above is from an interview with The National's singer Matt Berninger, a wonderful human being and A++ lyricist. The things that voice does to you, man. The things that voice does to you.**

* * *

Salt comes from death. The death of the seas, coaxed out of the slowly constricting throat as the water evaporates, leaving only a thirsty earth. A death lightly dusted over dry crusts of water, a death that lounges in briny patches on the surface like lesions on a failing face. It runs as powdered blood in veins deep under the earth, rich and brackish. The animals found it first and then man followed the path to their cache, as they do.

Salt comes from death. And so do I. Wherever I go, death follows. Sometimes we are friends, and the right man dies at the right time and death is on my side. Sometimes it turns on me, and I'm left to bleed out quietly until I manage to pick myself up, until I think of what would happen if I didn't, I think of not seeing him again, and I stagger to the nearest hospital, or to whatever hovel I'm living in so I can stitch myself back together. It's happened much too often lately. I'm too close to getting what I want. I'm getting sloppy, careless.

I'm in a hotel outside Dublin, if it can be called that. Sitting on the lip of the tub, cauterising the ends of my stitches. It wasn't so awful this time; I've gotten better. I've watched John do it enough to know the basics.

I have to leave soon. Media does so love vigilantes, if I can be called that. Won't they just eat this up, celebrity detective, back from the dead, bringing justice to the wicked and so on and so on. I can't let them know. I can't let him know either. Not from them, just from me. He deserves what little I have left to give him, an apology, perhaps, or a sad little swan song before I bow out from his life with whatever you'd call grace from someone whose lost all sense of it. I've had a lot of time to think about it, and about him. I know he won't forgive me easily, or perhaps even at all. I've prepared for any eventuality. I've lived a lifetime without him in more time than I was ever with him, and I know which one would kill me faster, a life with him or without.

I wash the streaked blood from the tub and light a cigarette. The bedside table is littered with butts already, and burn marks. I've kept the room clean enough—even cleaner than it was when I came—but I am so close to the end and a little litter won't hurt me now. I suck in the smoke, feel the wave of coolness, and I shut my eyes and revel in it and tell myself this feeling will last.

I am Lot's wife. I don't even have a name anymore; people call me all kinds of things, know me by all sorts of names. At first, when the names all piled upon each other, I wondered if this was the worst punishment, that I couldn't even keep the one thing I'd taken with me, but I've learned that there are far worse things people can do to you, or that you can do to them. I know I am Sherlock Holmes, even if they don't. I know who I am, muddled however much it is in this mire I've dragged myself through for nearly three years. I know who I am, or who I was. I managed to pack those parts of me away in tombs of salt.

The night before my fall, I knew the iniquity of my city was going to be destroyed. Me, the machine, I knew. Of course I knew. Machines function at a higher processing rate than most people. I let John call me those things, I let him say those words, because I knew him angry was far more bearable than him wrecked, or him dead. I would let him do anything, I would let him destroy me, if it meant it was me and not him. I accepted my chemical defectiveness long ago. I can admit it now. I know who I was, and I know the worth of that man to John.

I was told to run. I was taken aside, bloodied and pale and stricken, and told to run, lest I be swept away in the destruction, but I was already gone. I heard everything John said, out there in the blood and cold pavement. I heard everything. I was only a wall away from him, I knew he was going to identify my body, the one that we were sure looked so much like me. He was just over there, just _right there_ and I did nothing. I couldn't look back or I'd be turned to salt where I stood. I couldn't look back. I just couldn't. I wanted nothing else but to turn and let the destruction I'd escaped fill my eyes, the pyre that was the fault of a defective thing like me, but I didn't, and now I think of little else.

Mobile's ringing. Caller ID says…_oh_. Press send. _Comeoncomeoncomeon—_

Click. Live connection.

"Tell me."

* * *

The walls are swelling around us, here in the quiet. The TV's still on; he didn't bother to turn it off. It's not a priority when your once dead flatmate walks in, I suppose.

It's been an hour and thirteen—fourteen minutes. He hasn't said a word. Not one utterance, not a wild punch, not _anything_, and I need to know why. I need to know what he's thinking. I need to.

"Say something." I huff finally, bringing an unlit cigarette to my mouth. "Don't make me read your mind. Still can't do that, in case you forgot—"

He snatches the lighter from me before I can spark a light. He doesn't say anything. He hasn't said anything, but I knew that would get some kind of reaction out of him. I need him to _do something_, I need to gather data, and data does not spring from nothing. God, he looks terrible. He must have lost near two stone. It can't be because of me. I couldn't look back. I just couldn't. I'd have been turned to salt, an eternal commemorative witness to some great tragedy.

He continues to stare at me, and I look around the flat if it means not looking back at him. Nothing's changed, but I already knew that when I came in. It's perfectly preserved, like a shrine, like it's been packed in salt and dried out and preserved, like no one lives here anymore. There aren't any stray dishes, or clutter, or anything. He's wiped all the data I need like some sort of virus. It's maddening.

"I thought you'd leave." I mutter to the walls, and to him. "With the rent and all." _And the ghosts._

He continues to stare at me. I'm becoming quite frustrated, this lack of response is entirely undeserved, not to mention unexpected. I thought he'd _do_ something. I thought he'd be happy or angry or sad or…just _something_. He seems empty. I didn't want that; I don't want it now.

"You should know me better than that." He says quietly. "The rent's what you want to talk about? Fine. The rent's been paid for. By your brother. For a lifetime. Do you know why? Because he felt bad that you went and killed yourself in front of me, and that he was partially the reason why. The only thing keeping me in this flat is _pity._" He spits the last word. This is better. He can deal with anger. He can't deal with _nothing_.

"I'm sure the location is also commendable—"

"Why didn't you tell me?" John snaps suddenly, and it's as if the fog has been lifted. He looks livid, red-faced and furious. His veneer is cracking. Wonderful, we're getting somewhere.

"Took too much time." I offer.

"Too much—_too much time?_" His voice cracks from stress. "You couldn't send a text or an email or call me or have your bloody fucking brother tell me? Or Molly? Yes, I know about her, Mycroft told me, which is more than I can fucking say for you, you utter posh fucking _prick_, Sherlock Holmes."

New data. Correlate, analyse, proceed with extreme caution. Subject is volatile.

"I didn't want to hurt you." That, at least, was the truth.

"You didn't want to hurt me." John repeats, and laughs. He _laughs_. Something inside me shifts. This thing I've been carrying for three years, this thing I've packed in salt and preserved so I didn't have to think about it, it's coming to the surface like patches of brine and it—and I am…I am afraid of it. I try to push it back down before John can see, before he _knows_. He can't know. He can't.

"I thought you would appreciate it." I hears myself say softly, much too softly for someone trying to seem better, bigger, than what he was, or what he was feeling. "I was trying to be…like you."

"No." John shakes his head in disbelief. "You're not. You're nothing like me."

"No," I admit, "I'm not. But I tried."

John says nothing, slipping back into his previous state. This is getting us nowhere, but it's far, far better than being without him, so I don't care, I really don't.

"Would you like me to leave you alone?"

John says nothing.

"Mrs Hudson doesn't know I'm here. I came straight to you, after I…I can leave as quickly as I came."

"You're not right anymore." John says, with a bemused look on his face. "You're different."

"Apologies." I reply as I stand to shrug on my coat. _A handful of hours with you was worth it, worth this, seeing you. Sentiment—_

"Wait, I—" John falls into troubled silence and I wait for him to gain what ground he can manage. "I just...why couldn't you have told me?"

"What could I have said?" I ask. This is awful, I don't know what to say. I never know the right thing to say, even though I'd expected this night, though I'd dreamed of it, though I'd thought about it more than anything else, I didn't have anything planned at all. I thought I'd had time. "What could I have done to make you whole? To make you hurt less? I didn't take you with me, and the fact remains: why? I could say you'd slow me down, I could say I didn't want you there, but the truth…the truth is you were a liability."

I watch John crumble before me, I feel my blood thickening, drying, turning me to a pillar of salt for looking back at things I shouldn't have.

"A liability." John repeats hoarsely.

"Yes. If you'd been injured, if you'd died, I don't know what I would have done. I don't know—taking you with me was never an option. You were safer here."

"Safer." He repeats again. He's staring into nothing and I don't know what he's thinking unless he tells me _more _and he's saying _nothing_ and we are getting _nowhere_.

"I left you." I say quietly. "I understand the consequences, I understood them when I jumped off the roof and made you watch me, and I'm sorry, John, I'm sorry for making you hurt, for making you feel less because I was trying to save your life, but I won't apologise for the things I did to keep you here, to be talking to you know. If I hadn't, who knows what might have happened to you? Who knows if you'd be dead, if you'd be shot again or injured or—"

"There are worse things, Sherlock." John interjects roughly. "There are far, far worse things than being shot, if it meant I'd have been with you. You're worth any wound I'd ever get. But you left me. You made me think you were dead. Three years. For three years, I thought—I thought this was it. I thought this was the best my life could ever get, and then I lost you. You made me think you were dead, and I believed you."

"I—it was a trick, John. Just a—a magic trick, that's all."

John stares at me hard for a moment before he smiles a rueful hateful little smile and gets up.

"Well it was real for me, so great fucking trick there, one for the books I reckon. I'm going to bed."

"John I—may I stay?" _Here, near you, close by, may I stay in your line of sight for the rest of my life?_

"Tonight, Sherlock, I don't really give a damn. Whether you're here in the morning or not is up to you."

He disappears into the room down the hall. I don't have the courage to ask myself why he didn't go upstairs.

* * *

I stay. Of course I stay, since I know what life is like without John. Without _this_, this unnameable feeling I get ensconced in our home, in knowing we're safe, knowing this is over and we can be happy, one day if not this one.

Lying on the sofa, bare feet dangling off the edges, I feed myself coldness. Three years of it, every day, like clockwork, like a pill I'm supposed to take. A pill every morning to forget, to not feel as much as I did, to be what I used to be, to become a machine. It's cold in the den. I can feel it seep into my bones, encased as they are, perfectly preserved in my high salinity life.

It's dark, down there in the cellar. When life becomes too bright, when the sky outside darkens and the raging winds begin to blow and I can taste the salt and dirt and rusted metal of the cyclones in the air, I abandon my mind palace and throw open the doors to my cellar, where I clatter down the stairs and begin my wait.

There's one window in the cellar, high and narrow, so I might glance out and watch the storm rage by. It's dark down there, but when I want to pockets of fire bloom in the air and I roll them in his palms—they're soft, like down, I'll never be burned down here, never have anyone burn for me either—and let them go to float in the middle of the room. The walls are cold, made of impenetrable stone no man or storm could break no matter how much they raged; my fortifications; my prison. The parquet floors are shining and clean and wrought with such intricacy that I can't stare too long; I don't want to be stuck in the cellar, I want to escape into it, and out of it. The spheres of fire shine like the hearts of the hearth and the shadows thicken inside, the storm rages outside, I sit in my solitude, and salt blows through that lone window to collect on my lips like warm sea spray.

I blink. Rain spatters on the window outside. Dishes clink from inside the kitchen. The warm bright balls of flame turn to soft gold light from the table lamp at my head. The wind picks up, screaming in my ears, and the storm outside rages. I don't want to leave my cellar. Not really. Or so I tell myself. I lie like any other man; I die like any other man.

I stare at the kitchen wall. John comes in at one point, with his old pyjamas and his wild hair and his wild cold feelings, and I watch him make tea without a word. He doesn't offer me any, but I know John filled the kettle full enough for two cups, just in case, or perhaps out of habit.

I stare at the kitchen wall. John turns on the television. News. Boring. Comes through the cracks of my cellar. It's cold out here; my skin pimples with gooseflesh. I taste salt on my lips. The homicide was the fault of the brother, not the current suspect, just listen to him. I could say it out loud and John would look at me and smile and say _amazing_ or _brilliant_ and I'd explain it all and _genius needs an audience_, doesn't it?

The weather comes on. Cloudy, with rain. How surprising, in London, in the springtime. Truly shocking.

_I have a wing for you, in the palace, you know. Well, how would you know since I took great care to see that you didn't. Built it before I left, added on what I could salvage from the wreck I left behind. Would you like to hear that, or would it make you angry with me? I want you to see it, I wish you could, I'd even let you write on the walls, write all your frustrations with me and I'd finally know what to do about this, about you, because you are not giving me anything to work with here and how can I make you better if I keep seeming to make you worse? Machines don't do well packed in salt, John, didn't you know that? They have a tendency to rust right to the bone._

"Can you turn that down?" I hear myself say, just to say it, just to say something. "There's too much crying."

John ignores me. I suppose he's been without me so long he's now accustomed to living alone, without interruption, more than he ever was with a life crammed to the gills with me and all the things I asked of him.

"I lived in salt for you. For leaving you. Did you know that?"

John ignores me. I march on, too far gone to care. Too far gone to salvage any part of myself I wanted to hide. I'm going to drown anyways. The storm outside rages. The cold and rain are seeping through the cracks.

"I thought about you, you know. Often, concernedly."

"Often with concern or concernedly often?" John asks finally, without looking at me.

I think about it before deciding, though I don't know why I do since I know the answer. Rain water trickles through the cellar walls. I've sprung a leak. "Both."

"And that bothers you, thinking about me often?"

"It bothers me, thinking about you often."

"Right." John says, clipped, and water from the storm is pooling swiftly on the cellar floor.

"It killed me, I think, dying for you." I mutter, caught in the intricate spin of the parquet floors. "I buried myself in salt so I didn't have to think about it. I was Lot's wife."

"You're a man, Sherlock, not a Biblical figure, or a pillar of salt. Just in case you hadn't noticed."

"You're different too, you know. You're not right anymore either."

"Well watching someone's best friend throw themselves off a building does tend to change a man." John snipes, then rears on me, face reddening. "And since when do you fucking get to decide whether I'm _right_ or not? You don't have that power anymore, not since you threw yourself off a building and made me watch. You _left_, Sherlock, you died and left me to a life where I was something less than what I was before. Do you know what that's like, losing so much that you fall right past what you thought rock bottom was? Knowing you have _farther to fall_?"

_Of course I do. I already did it, for you, you great stupid thing._

The man I'd left behind, buried in the salt, he might have said that once. Might not have even hesitated. Probably wouldn't have. But he's gone, and I am here.

"This wasn't easy on me either, John—"

If possible, John's eyes narrow further. Wrong hypothesis, negative results, you've done it again, Holmes. Well done. The water at my feet shines as the light brightens against parquet tiles. The storm rages outside.

"No, I'm sure these three years for me were just a fucking walk in the park compared to yours. Was running all over the globe and having great fucking adventures all the time a little too stressful? Had to take a public flight? Did your five star suite get downgraded?"

I stare at him, at the raw vehemence pouring from this wounded man, and a thought occurs to me late, so annoyingly _late_, and my head hurts at the realisation. _Of course_. _Crucial data, nearly overlooked, stupid stupid stupid—_

"What exactly did you think my absence entailed, John?"

That stops him. The water recedes.

"What—posh git like you, I'm betting all you had to do was ask Mycroft and you got a blank cheque to do whatever you needed to—"

I shake my head, I want to rid myself of the light, shining so bright it's blinding me; makes my head ache; I taste salt on my lips.

"He only—" I blink. The light shimmers on the rising water. I'm going to drown in my cellar if I don't get out, I'll drown in the salt and the rain. "Only knew where I was going, if I wanted him to. I flew economy, or snuck onto trains, or hotwired cars. If I didn't have to pay for it, I didn't. I lived in holes, with rats and roaches and desperate people trying to live alongside some specimens of the absolute scum of the earth. Sometimes I slept on the streets, or behind skips, or not at all. I lived, if you can call it that, but don't think for one minute that I left you to jet off on some grand adventure, don't think I gave you up for something better. I _died_ every night, in the worst ways, and I did it for you. I gave up my life, I gave up our home and our life, I gave up _this_, for you. Do you know what it's like, to live in salt, to thirst for things you can't have? To hear water nearby, to see it in the distance, and know you can't cross the void you've made to get to it? I built a _chasm_, I buried myself in a landslide and left you on the other side and now I can't _see _you anymore."

John stares at me hard for a moment, lips pursed. My body feels cold, like I've been floating in salt water, a bloated corpse for days. I'm waiting for him to speak—it's etiquette, I'm told, in situations like this. Seconds unfold into minutes and John scrunches each one that passes up like a wad of paper, tossing it behind us. He's wearing that face he makes when he doesn't understand something but wants to. Good. He's trying.

"You said you built a chasm—" He says finally. "You're comparing me…to water."

I nod. I don't trust myself to speak anymore.

"Water to a man dying of thirst…" John's eyebrow quirks up. "People will definitely talk."

I can't help but straighten up out of my misery. If John is feeling good enough to make jokes—

The lights are blinding. There must be water in my lungs by now. Am I out of the cellar? It was flooding, I couldn't get out—

The lights are gone, and I slide into darkness.

When I come to, John is kneeling over me, brow furrowed. His lips are moving, but in the haze I don't know what he's saying. The lights are blurred above me.

Something's pressed to my lips—water. Finally. Water for the man dying of thirst. Water for the man who buried himself in salt. I drink with the selfish overindulgence thirst brings and feel the water slop over my shirt. It's cold. I find I don't care. Has there ever been such a glorious invention, such a glorious moment, as that drink of water?

"—Dehydrated, you stupid idiot…" John is saying.

"Redundant." I gasp between gulps. "Pick one and stick with it."

"Idiot." John mutters, and then he's leaving _no_ and I'm alone with a wet shirt and wounded pride. He reappears shortly and shoves a tea towel into my hands before sitting next to me on the floor. "I should get you a kid's cup next time. You'll spill less."

"What happened?"

"You fainted."

"Yes, clearly." I snap, and I don't miss the quick grin on his face, smothered as if it was unbidden but I saw it all the same.

"You were dehydrated probably. Knowing you and your dietary schedules, I'm pretty certain. When did you eat last?"

I stop, remembering, cycling through backwards memories. When _did_ I eat last?

"Christ, you don't even remember do you? Pillock."

He's up again, moving away from me. I keep him in my line of sight. I have a mind to do it for the rest of our lives. He's grabbing a coat—no—he's leaving, he can't leave, this is his—_our_—home, he can't just go—

"Come on, Lot's wife, are you coming or not?" He calls, and I stumble to my feet.

"Where are we going?"

"So many questions, you're starting to sound like me. We're going to get you something to eat."

* * *

This is too easy. He's just sitting there, eating lo mein like I never left, like I didn't destroy us both. He should be angry—he'd been angry, just not enough, not what I'd expected—goddammit John, give me something here, this is too easy, I know you, I do—

He looks at me, fork halfway to his mouth, before he sighs and sets it down. "You're not eating."

"I ate."

He doesn't believe me, judging by that look, and says as much. "You had one bite, two max."

"This is too easy. You're being too fair."

"Apologies." He says in a most unapologetic way, tucking one more into the noodles.

"What can I do? What do you want me to say?"

"I want to enjoy my food. I want you to say you'll eat yours."

"I'll eat mine." I say, but I don't move to picking up my fork. He's hiding something, there's something he won't tell me, something is wrong—

"There is a void between us. I don't like it."

"Well you put it there." John says tartly, as if to finish it with _so bridge it yourself_. He quiets for a moment, then "I don't like it either."

"How was the funeral?"

John's fork clatters to his plate and he sends an irate glance into the universe, as if it was the one who annoyed him and not me.

"It was fine. Well not—it was a funeral, Sherlock, how do you think it was?"

"You seem...torn up."

"She died a week ago, I've had time to get over it, thanks."

"She was your sister."

"She was nothing to you, so why the fuck do you care?" He snaps, toying at his noodles with vehemence.

"She was something to you."

He stares at me, face washed out from florescent lights, with an expression I can't name, which is irksome. I know all of them; happiness, fear, anger, sadness, and all the ones in between. But this…I can't name this. Grief, perhaps, and relief, and…and something else.

"Not near the end. Not much before it either…but at the beginning, yeah, she was."

"Tell me." I say quietly. He makes no move to acknowledge that I've spoken, he just stares at the corner of the table with that horrible muddled expression—_martyr, he looks like a martyr_.

I pick up my fork and reach across the table to swirl it in his lo mein. It drips sauce onto the table, and he watches me eat it.

"I told you to eat _your _food."

"Same difference. Tell me."

John raises his eyes to mine.

* * *

I open my eyes. I'm back on the sofa, my second home. Currents are running lazily through the ceiling. I wonder where the dark parts with the deepest water are.

The faucet is running in the kitchen. John hasn't said a word since the restaurant.

"Would you like a plaster?" I ask into the void.

He doesn't answer, and the faucet is shut off with a rough smack. He's still angry.

He comes in a few minutes later, or at least appears in the doorway. I can see his bandaged hand, stained in spots with red. Smashed plates will do that.

"What do you want from me, Sherlock?" He asks, voice raw with frustration. He didn't cry, but he was on the precipice. "Just tell me so I can give it to you and you can get out."

I stand, and the ceiling current moves to run beneath my feet.

"I want many things from you, John, but you are not amenable to granting me them at this point. I doubt you will any time soon, and I understand."

"You understand." He repeats, and laughs the hollow laugh of mad men being burned alive. "You don't understand, Sherlock."

"Yes, I do. I understand that I hurt you, and that it was a consequence of my choice to protect you. I understand that bringing up your estranged sister's death—yes, that's what she was, don't pretend otherwise—was not the correct thing to do, but what I don't understand, John, is _you_. I come back to you and your silences and you make jokes and talk like nothing happened, like you're fine with this and you are not fine, John, and neither am I, and yet you sit there and look at me with those martyr eyes of yours like you're the only one who's been suffering this whole time; well what about me, then? What of the machine that broke itself in your name? Oh, we shouldn't speak of it, it'll be better if we just don't talk about it, is that it? We'll just go back to normal and all of this will sort itself out and we'll be _fine_. Stiff upper lip, Queen and Country, is that it? I_died _for you, and you say I don't understand, but you are wrong, John Watson, I understand plenty, I understand more than you could possibly hope to!"

The silences after angry outbursts are deafening, heavy with the realization that control had been voided for a few irredeemable seconds. John is staring at me and I can't even call this an argument, he hasn't said anything, he's giving me nothing and I—

I'm breathing heavily. I didn't expect to. Didn't want to—_fuck, _I didn't—

John was always the one who lost his temper. I've been a pot of boiling sea water, and now all of the water is gone and only salt remains. The man who lives in salt rises again.

"My eyes are fine." John says solemnly and I want to collapse into nothingness. I want him to sever the cord and be done with it, with this game, I don't want to play anymore, I am done, just kill me and be done with the damn thing, but don't leave me like I left you, I couldn't—I wouldn't…just don't do it. You're a better man than I am, than I ever will be. You're the saint, and I am a good man playing at greatness.

"There's nothing wrong with your eyes. Never was." What am I saying, why, please let this end, this needs to be over _now—_

"You really feel that way? About—about all of it?"

"Yes."

"I forgive you." He says quietly, so quietly I nearly miss it.

"Pardon?"

"I forgive you, Sherlock."

He's not cutting the cord. He's gathering it. He's bringing it closer.

"—But," he goes on, "That doesn't mean I'm not angry. What you did today—what you did three years ago—that was unacceptable, that was worse than unacceptable, it was...it was something I never thought I could live through. And then you come back with your apologies and tell me I'm the one with martyr eyes when you didn't even see how you looked at me when I came in the room. And you sat across from me, hours after you called me water to a dying man, looked me in the face, and told me Harry deserved what she got—I thought I might be the cause of your actual death tonight."

"What stopped you?" I ask, hoping he'll smirk and say _sentiment_.

"Witnesses."

I blanch.

"—well, and logic. I missed you for three years. I thought you were dead, for three years. Imagine what it'd be like knowing you were dead forever, and I was the cause."

"So it was sentiment."

"I guess you could call it that, yeah—"

Before he can change his mind, or before whatever _this_ is becomes something else, I crowd into his space and grasp his face in my hands. He tenses, reflexes ready to strike back.

"Tell me you missed me. Missed _this_."

"I missed you." He gasps against my palms. "But I don't know what _this_ is."

"A demonstration, then." I murmur, lowering my face to his and capturing his mouth with mine for a moment before I pull away.

"We aren't fine." John says quietly.

"Yes. I know."

"_This_ won't fix anything, won't fix us, not really—"

"Yes, I _know_—"

"—But fuck it all if it doesn't help." John finishes, grabbing my face in his hands now and kissing me so hard we might fuse together at high heat. He tastes of boiling ocean, hot and wet and thick with salt.

"You asked what I want from you. I want this." I manage to mumble against his cheek. "I want you and your kindness, your loyalty, your affections. I want your sentiment, John Watson."

"I could give it to you, some day." He mumbles back before drawing away. "But right now, I'm knackered. Shattering plates and scaring nice people trying to enjoy a meal out is more exhausting than I thought."

He moves to head to m—his bedroom.

"John." I call, and he turns, a shadow in the darkness, barely visible. "I—may I stay?"

I can hear his smile through the darkness.

"If you like."

* * *

Sometimes the salt rubs into the open wounds, and I remind him of why I left, or of the fact that I did, and he leaves me for a while. Not physically, but he'll be right next to me and a thousand miles away, just as far as when I left him. I wonder if it's payback. His retribution. He will say _we're fine_ and I'll know he's lying and we'll have a row eventually when the kettle boils over and the steam spills out, which leads to loud words and great sex. John likes to channel his anger through his cock, I've learned—a lesson taught to me multiple times, bent over the kitchen table or over the arm of the sofa or clutching the headboard of a room I'm reclaiming as _ours_ instead of _mine then his_. Sometimes he'll let me kiss him, let me lick into his mouth and taste his secrets and his sadness and salt, and I'll hold him close as he cries after a nightmare or as he's making breakfast or as I slide into him just _there_ and we are not fine, but we are getting better.

Sometimes the wounds ache but they don't hurt, and we forget we had them. He'll kiss me or I'll do something mad and he'll smile and we are all fine aren't we? We arein the room together and it is all fine in that moment. We've got a case coming up, the first since my supernatural return, or miraculous, depending which side of the fence you're on.

I look over at him, typing away at his laptop with the speed and dexterity of my great-aunt. He glances back at me and smiles. There's still so much unsaid—so much mire to wade through together, but at least we are together, and not apart. Neither of us has it within our constitutions to survive it again, and if he died, I wouldn't be far behind, but that doesn't mean we don't argue about me using the last of the milk as a culture again or that everything is perfect and we just need a white picket fence as the bow on our model life. Sometimes he'll go away from me, and I will bring him back. Sometimes I'll barricade myself in my cellar, and he will trudge through the howling wind and salty rain to come down the stairs, hold out his hand amid the floating fire, and lead me back home.

We are not fine, but we are not bad either. We're getting better. We are working on it.

* * *

**To cheer you up if you need it:**

**Sin Fang - "What's Wrong With Your Eyes"**  
**(youtube watch?v=MUwiNUlHCAw)**


	2. Demons

_**"Do my crying underwater,**_

_**I can't get down any farther.**_

_**All my drowning friends can see,**_

_**Now there is no running from it.**_

_**It's become the crux of me,**_

_**I wish that I could rise above it."**_

_**Demons - The National**_

* * *

He wakes in a sweat, as he does many nights. Most nights. Morning light creeps through the blinds, and Tokyo carries on with or without him. There's something wondrous, or something terrible, or perhaps both, something about that many people in that little space, something in that pavement so saturated with life.

He was dreaming of gold hair that melted in his fingers. These days, it's usually something to do with him; something that was his, or belonged to him. The other night he dreamt of bloodied cable knit jumpers, and the night before that he dreamt of a soft strong voice and the cold touch of fingers that all led to a stethoscope in place of a body, but he knew who it belonged to. There was only one answer to it, only ever one answer.

He wants to roll over, to dismiss the morning, and go back to sleep, back to a great and vast nothingness. He wants to forget, or at least not remember. He wants the mercy of not remembering, of a blank existence, void of memory, void of emotion, of sentiment.

Sherlock Holmes does not want to be here. Not in the slightest, not even a little bit. But life has tossed him a spade down here in the hole that circumstance and his own failings have dug him and told him to get himself out, or otherwise keep digging.

He rolls out of bed, chest covered in a thin sheen of cold sweat, and staggers to the window. He throws open the blinds and cards a hand through his hair, leaning against the sill as he digs in the pocket of his pyjamas for his lighter. Snatching the box of cigarettes from the dresser beside him, he shakes one out and lights it with trembling fingers.

He is saved by moments like this, where he can suck in all the tar he likes and pretend everything is alright. His blood will rush a little faster and he can close his eyes and tell himself he's in control; these moments where he takes out the string and darns himself back together again after his mind turns traitor and tears himself apart in the distorted void of sleep. Those moments where he does not see his trembling hands.

Smoke drifts from the lit end as he exhales, staring across the street at the restaurant with the basement that becomes a gambling parlour Tuesdays and a fighting ring every other night of the week, except Sunday. Everything's quiet there on Sunday. A small part of him, one of the raw reflexes from before his fall, wants to break in on Sundays and see what the hell happens there, since a place that's quietly, illegally busy every other day of the week won't bother to rest on the last; Tokyo is not a place that sleeps. Another part of him—a part that sounds suspiciously like John more and more every day—tells him that' a bit not good, and that he has other things he needs to worry about.

The yakuza will come for him in, oh…an hour and fifteen minutes. They will break the door down, flood his little one room apartment, shove a gun in his face and demand to know where all the money he found went to and where their leader's body is, and then he'll smile and joke, perhaps throw a tantrum barb someone's way, and before they know what's happened two will be on the ground, one may or may not be dead—their mobility, or lack therof, will not remain so unclear however—and the last will have his own gun pointing at his face, taken right out of his inept hands.

He smokes down to the filter. He does that a lot lately, and doesn't notice when he lights another, or the next one, or the fifth. The street moves beneath him and he stares down at the people below, a gargoyle playing at heroes. A child tugs at his mother's skirt, bleating for some reward or another; he will not get it, judging from the cardigan she's wearing. A man in an outdated suit crosses the road and yells at a speeding cab; he'll be fired today. This city may have a different face than Paris or London or Moscow, but their bones are all the same. These are the people he's written his life away for, the people he's traded tea and smoking bullet holes and dishwater hair for empty alleys and the life of a fleeing animal. And that's what he's become, see; an animal in the corner, running all over the world. A hare playing at the fox. Fine. If that's what was to be, he'd run, and he'd hide and he'd do anything and everything that he must to finish his. And he would win. He would. There was no other conceivable option than that he would triumph. He was the good one after all, wasn't he? He was on the side of the angels. But he hadn't believed that then, and it was harder to do so now.

An hour and ten minutes left. The yakuza, if anything, were at least adherent to structure; they would eliminate a power imbalance quickly, especially one that managed tripped them up from the inside. He had taken out the leader of the lower brothers; they'd be out for blood, not to mention the money he'd taken, but they wouldn't find either.

He glances back to the hiding place, to the spot he'd turn to in case of fire.

* * *

Aizukotetsu-kai may have had the bones of a yakuza, but the meat and muscle of the buraku—social discards and outcasts—to make it move.

Takaijihi. That was his name now. 'Tall Mercy'. Partly for his height, yes, but partly for the other meaning: a high price; expensive. Neither side pretended that the reason they had allowed him to attend their meetings wasn't because of the damage he'd done to the three cocksure foot members that tried to mug him.

After they'd sulked off tail-tucked and cried to her, their gang boss sent out some underlings to break in and found Sherlock licking his wounds—or stitching rather, as it'd been messier than he'd anticipated; he'd blurted 'Ninkyo' through a mouthful of blood, holding up his hands, before they laughed, stopped beating him, and taken him into the heart of Kyoto to face their boss. He'd been thrown to the floor, his head held high as he looked at her, absolutely certain that he was going to die, and he didn't see the beauty of Kita Seong-Eun before him, he saw his fingers running through short strands of golden hair inside his head, and he imagined what it would have felt like without feeling the pain of the knowledge that he could only guess. But instead of shooting him and leaving him to die, however, she smiled at him, and offered a hand to help him up; she knew, as he did, that it was better the tiger was kept in your cage, and not someone else's.

Kita Seong-Eun, the daughter of a Korean mother and Japanese father, was the second woman to beat him; she had the grace to call it a draw and spare his pride, what little he might still have. She was merely next in line to step up to where he knelt—because who can stand after a fall like that?—and neatly chipped a piece of him up, made him heavier, not lighter, forced him closer to the floor. She had loomed over him with The Woman's shadow. She had Sherlock Holmes at her mercy, and she had the power to afford to leave him alive.

But whereas The Woman had been all threats and secrets and one powerplay tripping after another, Seong-Eun openly acknowledged her position in life without denying what she had done to get there, nor all the benefits it allowed her now. She was dangerous because she had no secrets to be used against her, no one to be loved by her, and where The Woman had inspired no loyalty but her own, Kita Seong-Eun commanded the love of all of her underlings, and the respect of her elders.

Kita Seong-Eun may not have been the same kin as The Woman, yes, but he easily recognised they were of the same breed.

The night they met, she had him dumped into a chair across from a cheap shaky table and commanded his handcuffs be struck off before presenting him with a finger of clear liquid in a plastic cup. He sniffed it, and she'd laughed at him.

"You asked for ninkyo, did you not?" She said. He didn't trust her eyes. "No one will kill you while I am here, I promise this." She glances down at her cup, fingers idly stroking the sides. "Normally, we would have a traditional initiation ceremony, but you aren't quite normal, are you Mr Holmes?"

He said nothing, but raised his cheap little cup in a toast.

"To beginnings."

"No," She smiled, and he didn't trust that either, "To rheostat".

They both downed the sake and she drew a kit from her side, opening it to reveal bottles of ink and a pack of sterile needles, waving over a tattooed man from where he hovered in the corner.

Proceed with caution.

* * *

She had called on him a day later. Not in person, of course. They were not friends, not acquaintances, and barely allies. She had merely gotten to him first, and unleashed him on everyone else.

She had sent Ning Min Lee, known in inner circles simply as Ne, after the Japanese word which asks for confirmation, for an agreement—a man who paradoxically centred his whole identity on the phrase equivalent of 'am I right?'. He was tall and skinny, with a slicked back pompadour that looked as if he'd made it by greasing up a hairball from the drain and a prominent brow and high cheekbones made him look skeletal, and chronic ulcers gave him a sickly and menacing countenance, as if he were always annoyed. He had arrived with a cigarette in one hand, yellow juzu beads around the other—Sherlock had nearly smiled at the irony—and with his shirtsleeves rolled up, displaying his tattoos, as if they could strike fear into a man who'd seen them nearly every day in London, where they meant nothing.

You are a funny man, Mr Holmes. You will not try to run, ne?

He had given Sherlock an address, a name, and one sentence on what to do before softly adding that if he failed, he would let Sherlock see just how long his intestines could stretch.

Information he already knew, of course, but not careless enough to test himself (the average intestine, total, is twenty-odd feet long; his, perhaps longer, or shorter; he didn't want to approximate).

He did his job. That much could have been said of him. He'd done it. For who exactly, he couldn't say. He didn't know anymore, to be honest. For him, no, it hadn't been for him. He hadn't gained anything, except a few more secure days in Tokyo…a few days that meant nothing. He'd still have to run, in the end. He always ran, in the end. He didn't do it for Kita—why on earth would he do it for her?—and for John…everything was for John, everything was for them, for both of them, for who they'd been, and perhaps who they might be, but nothing was just for one cause. He was a prism, and the light shone through, flashing in all directions, refracting off of himself until he was in darkness. Is the prism aware that it exists for light, or does light exist for the prism? He isn't sure…he isn't sure he's ever been sure.

The club music pounds through the pavement, through the stilettos of the dressed up women, of the girls pretending to be the women they want to be, and through the shining shoes of the social climbers, and the tight dresses, tight trousers, tight ambitions, tight dreams of those standing in line.

He flashes the cross-and-brackets daimon inked onto his wrist, set amid the coils of a dragon slithering out of a skull—impermanent, but no one needs to know, so long as it looks convincing—and he understands that this life is degrading, as surely as the ink will fade from his skin. The shelf life of all the lives he's occupied is never long; he uses them until his purposes are met. Kita knows this, and so does he, which is why she will keep him on life support until she is done with him.

He can hear the music from outside; the manager must be in the red.

I shoot the lights out, hide til it's bright out—

He's let in to pass through the line, amid the shadowed nudges and hushed whispers of 'gaijin', and revels in the shallow sullied feeling of being more than these people, these ladder-climbers, and he crosses into this next world, into a bright, flashy falseness. How the lights of this existence must look when they're turned on.

Are you willing to sacrifice your life—

The song screams, echoing round the room. He skirts carefully around the girls hobbling on impossible shoes towards the dance floor, turning his eyes away from the writhing bodies. The floor is tacky beneath his feet. The air smells of sweat and perfume, dry ice and smoke.

Ahead, a shining flight of stairs, glowing green in the darkness. He climbs them, turning on the landing, and coming out onto the balcony club floor.

Lights glimmer on the go-go dancers who flock the stage like birds vying for bread, decked in false faces and colourful plumage, with long legs to wade through the mire. An upbeat, pop dance song is playing in time to the flashing lights. Some idiot DJ is pretending they won't die one day. Some clubgoers that crowd the floor are pretending they won't die one day.

A set of men are doing lines off a steel-shining table. He feels a pang, an echo of reverberation shoot through him. He remembers that feeling of weightless abandonment, of an invulnerability free of gravity, like you could never come down. That drug that injects you with white hot youth. He feels a pang, and he moves on.

As he waits for his drink, choosing to be blind to the winks of the bartender and her cleavage damn near in his face, he wonders how often criminals think of their mothers. It's a passing thought, and allows him to look lost in concentration. He never thinks of his mother. He thinks of John, and Mrs Hudson, and his home. He thinks of the life he's traded for this shiny false existence.

Ne eyes him across the bar, worrying at the yellow beads around his wrist. Sherlock raises his glass, eyebrow arched. Ne lights a cigarette, staring him down, the embers glowing in his eyes before the strobe lights drown them out, and then looks away.

A hand claps him on the shoulder and he starts, ready to toss his drink in their face and use the distraction to break their wrist in three separate ways before he notices the missing tip of an index finger.

"Sherlock, my friend! You are doing well?"

"Ishido." He nods in greeting, relaxing.

Ishido Shino, mole and next door neighbour, smiles. Yakuza members, after transgressions, are to give the tip of their little finger to their boss, as a sign of repentance and loyalty. Ishido, in his younger days, had overcompensated before his semi-retirement from the gang at the ripe old age of 29. Now, he was benched to the more promising realm of computer hacking and payroll, a business that went hand in hand. Sherlock had the fortune of discreetly persuading him towards his side before Kita Seung Eun had recruited him with that plastic cup of sake and the fake tattoo. A job promised in London through batting lashes was all it took.

Sherlock politely doesn't notice the delirium tremens as Ishido reaches for his drink, his standard fare of seltzer water and cherry flavouring for colour that he'd affectionately called The Hooker Spasm in a moment of self-deprecation.

"Is she here?" He calls over the din of the music, and Ishido nods, masking it from Ne's gaze—among others'—with a drink from his glass.

"Upstairs. Waiting, although I don't know for who."

"'Whom'." Sherlock corrects, eyeing the staircase set discretely in a darkened corridor near the back of the club. "And I do."

* * *

Ne is waiting at the foot of the stairs, wrapped in shadow as if it was part of him. Sherlock walks past him as if he's a stranger, although really, what's the difference?

He hides the slip of paper in his palm, and tugs his gloves on.

* * *

He always thinks he's seen the worst face humanity can show him, until it gets uglier than before.

In Moscow, he must watch a man he knows to be innocent garrotted in front of him. He knows he can do nothing, he knows that, ultimately, this man will die for a misunderstanding, that he will die for nothing. It's a feeling he can't name, watching the demise of someone who means nothing.

In Barcelona, he sits next to a man who will later kill a woman and maim her child driving drunk. Sherlock will be the only witness. Later, he will smother him with a pillow while he sleeps—too merciful an end, but too unforgiving to allow his existence any further—and be forced to run before he can get the information he wants. He thinks of the child often before he goes to sleep, but he can't remember their face, only their expression as they were crippled in the flash of headlights.

Wherever he goes, his demons follow him.

They are here, now, settling down in his chest in Tokyo.

Kita holds her head in her hands, looking quite bored with the shivering creature across the table.

"How much did she take?"

"Around 50,000 yen." Ne answers.

She raises an eyebrow. "50,000?" She repeats, and turns back to the girl.

Sherlock knows her. A girl who calls herself Lita. She lives above him in the tenement squalor. He met her in the stairwell, tights ripped, lips bloodied, tears spattering her shirt next to the dried semen. He'd cleaned her face, let her sleep on his couch, and they began a cycle of wash, rinse, repeat. She made him noodle soup, even cracking an egg into it—a luxury for her—and he didn't ask questions when she appeared at his door, bloodied and bruised and crying. A few times, she tried to pay him back the only way she knew how—he'd start awake when he felt a small hand slip into his pants, or lips at his neck, and he tried to explain to her as best he could in rudimentary Japanese that none of her favours were needed with him. He'd lead her back to the sofa and make her life down before throwing his coat over her like a blanket. He'd watched over her often, sitting at his table since there was no room for a bed, and wondered if he could get the name of the men that hurt her.

She was going to die here. And there was nothing he could do. He still had a man to find, and appeasing Kita Seung-Eun was his only way.

She was crying, and Kita barked her question again.

"Y-yes." Lita answered. "50,000."

Kita stares at her a moment, and he feels anger well up inside him. She looks like she doesn't even care. She's not even angry; what is 50,000 yen to her? But this girl has transgressed, and must be punished.

"What will you do?" He asks, not looking Lita's way.

"Eh," She shrugs. "Let the men have their fun, then maybe take a finger or two…but that'd hurt business, wouldn't it?" She laughs, ignoring Lita as she bursts into great, terrible sobs. Sherlock closes his eyes, and sees that child staring at him.

"Stop being such a baby." Kita mocks. "You want a reason to cry?"

"Jihi," She calls, turning to Sherlock and says, as easily as if she was ordering a meal, "Hold her hand down."

At night now, the child screams like Lita did.

* * *

He closes the door softly behind him. The lights in the large VIP suite glow off the walls as if the room was underwater. Everything is white; he nearly rolls his eyes at the thought of another interior designer thinking they were original, with the white marble floors and plush endless couches and high ceilings.

There is a light at the end of the hall, a beam from a lighthouse in the middle of a rocky ocean. Rooms exit off of the corridor like grottos, silent and still with sleeping sharks.

"Kita?"

He treads carefully on the shining floor, bleached like sand, as he glancing into the darkness of each anteroom as he passes, heading towards the light at the end of the hall.

"I told you to call me Seung."

He stops. Thinks for a moment, re-evaluates—then turns.

Kita stands at the other end of the hall behind him, leaning against one of the pillars, her body smooth in the light. She's naked, ink curling over nearly every inch of her skin. She smiles. The water snake coiled between her breasts does the same.

She steps forward. He stays where he is.

"My mother raised me better than that."

Kita laughs. The lilies on her thighs sway as she moves, bobbing in the soft current of movement. A koi pond swims around her navel, mosaic Siamese fighting fish circling her torso in a drain. At her throat, a bacculite curls over her collarbone. Between her legs, an anemone folds out like a sunflower. Pinnate colonies wind up her calves in impossible detail, taking over every pale space of skin like ink bleeding on paper. Red and white coral coats the curve of her shoulders in false armour; octopi hide in safety, squeezing themselves inside the bottle of her ribs, tentacles wrapped over bone, never to be separated.

He stares openly, as one does when awestruck by an rare work of art. And that's what she is, what this is. It transcends her, and this is not Kita Seung-Eun he's looking at, this is just a canvas and it is the ink that draws his attention, not her curves, not what she's offering him, and certainly not her.

She turns, obliging an unspoken request. A red tide washes over her shoulders, its glowing bioluminescence soft in the cool churning light—an ultraviolet tattoo. He almost wants to touch it, feel the flesh raise and prickle under his fingers. At her coccyx a bluefire jellyfish nestles, defenseless and unassuming, thin drifting tentacles curling up around the vertebrae of her spine. He wonders for a delirious moment if it would sting him if he grazed it—

Kita moves quickly, faster than he imagined she could—stupid—and he barely blocks her jab, forearm coming up to stop the blade an inch from his temple. He steps on her bare foot, heel digging into the thin skin, and uses his weight to his advantage, grabbing her other arm and pinning it behind her.

"Show me the note." She says quietly, as if he doesn't have the upper hand, as if she didn't just try to slit his throat.

He stares down at her. Wondering, for a moment, if he could play stupid, if it would give him the upper hand.

"And how," he begins, "might I do that, when you keeping trying to kill me?" He cocks his head. "Run my course, have I? It's barely been a month."

"I know who you are, Mr Holmes. I know who you work for."

"Oh? Enlighten me, please."

"Moran." She hisses. "The spider's web."

"Really?" He can't help but be a little offended. "You think I'm working for him? You think I'd waste my time so poorly?"

"You…but you didn't use an alias, you came just after he left. He must have sent you, he must have left you in charge—"

Sherlock can't quite conceal the anger that bubbles up inside him. His grip on her wrist tightens. His heel digs further into her foot.

"He's gone? Moran isn't here?"

Kita shakes her head. "He was in Bombay, last I heard. Heading for Bangalore. But you would know that, wouldn't you?"

"You've been misinformed, sadly." He bites out. "Our association is at an end as well. I wasted—" He stops. He is overcome with the urge to break something. He has spent a month here, a month, a captive, a gun for hire, and for what? Moran isn't here. Moran is not. Here. A month is gone, Moran is gone, he was never here in the first place, not when it was crucial, not when it mattered—he wants to break something—

In his blindness, overcome momentarily with disappointment, Kita sweeps her free foot, catching him in the knee and sending him down, but he takes her with him, his grip unwavering. She tries to free the knife but he holds onto it, feeling the blade bite into his palm. He tugs on her arm, feeling the pop of dislocation and she is too proud to scream, which is a pity, because then her soldiers would come to her aid. Her pride might be the death of her, and he wants to say we are the same but instead he tightens his hand around the knife, slippery with his blood, and grapples it from her hand. Kita stills as he holds it to her throat, the two of them struggling for breath. The sea life printed on her trembles with rough waves.

"Do you know why you will die tonight?" He asks her softly.

She doesn't answer, eyes staring unblinkingly up at him. He knows this feeling, he's had it before—the moments of realization that you will die with absolute certainty. That death has finally come for you and there's no getting away.

"You will die," he breathes, "for a girl whose fingers you made me cut off one by one, for a girl who didn't know any better than the life you cornered her into. You will die for the sake of a man you will never meet. A man with an unerring ability to haunt me, a man you never harmed, or heard of, or laid eyes on. And I want you to know that. You are dying for no other reason than the fact that a stranger's life means much more—means the most—to me, than yours does."

"The note." Kita says hoarsely. "Show me the note."

Sherlock grins bitterly. "You want to spend your last moments staring at a piece of paper…"

But he acquiesces, pulling the slip of paper out, showing her the scrawled name.

"'Ne'?" She reads, confusion bunching her face. "On whose orders?"

He frowns, then flips the paper, and watches as Kita reads.

"'Kita Seung-Eun.' Upstairs. Two guards. Quietly.'"

"Had it backwards." Sherlock murmurs. "Apologies."

Later, he thinks about how odd it was that her last words were her death warrant.

* * *

He finds Ne outside, ever present cigarette smoldering in his hand.

"It is done?"

He nods. There isn't even blood on his shirt.

"Your hand."

Sherlock looks down and curses. His gloves are ruined.

"Here," Ne pulls off a few notes from the wad Sherlock has handed him. "Get some new ones."

Sherlock represses the urge to laugh. He nods his head in thanks.

"What will you do now, Jihi?" Ne asks as sirens wail in the distance.

He shrugs. "Run, most likely."

Ne nods. "Smart."

"And you?"

"Well, they will come after you, even if I take her place. They all loved her, and had none to spare for me, or for you. We're outsiders, you know. They never knew what exactly to do with us. But perhaps I can do something for you. A plane ticket, perhaps."

* * *

Sherlock sits on his bed, thumbing through his phone, the one he kept from before for moments like this.

_13:04_

_Why exactly are representatives from the London Aquarium looking for you?_

_13:07_

_Missed Call from: John Watson_

_YOU HAVE ONE VOICEMAIL_

He presses play and holds the phone up to his ear, as though he hadn't memorised it long ago, as though he could pretend it just happened.

_"Sherlock, why the bloody hell is there an octopus in the meat drawer, I—wait, what was that—SHERLOCK! YOU—OH MY GOD YOU ABSOLUTE WANKER YOU STOLE AN OCTOPUS FROM THE AQUARIUM, DIDN'T YOU? JESUS, what the fuck is wrong—OH MY GOD IT'S STILL FUCKING ALIVE JESUS FUCKING CHRIST—listen you two work at the aquarium right, you deal with…this—SHERLOCK, this is worse than the head cheese in the sink, honestly—do you hear me, this is WORSE , you absolute bastard—you've put me off coffee and now I can't eat sushi ever again, what's fucking next you posh—"_

The message ends with a click.

Sherlock sighs, pocketing his phone in the inner pocket of his coat, near his heart. He shrugs his coat on and hears footsteps thunder down the hall. He rolls his neck, checking for the small bag tucked next to his phone.

He turns as the door bursts open.

* * *

Later, he will sit on a plane and think of a new name as he shrugs off his old one. He's already washed the blood away in the sink, and it's time for this one to go too.

Later, he will wake from where he sleeps on a dirty floor in another busy city, as the sun rises through the windows, and wonder in his exhaustion why it looks the same, no matter where he is.

Later, he will jimmy the lock on a door in London, and, after placing a box of takeaway sushi on the counter, he will settle into a familiar chair in an unfamiliar flat. And he will wait.

Later.

All of this will come later.

For now, the demons weighing on his chest drag him down into sleep. For now, he will keep downing this sour in the cup he's been dealt. Life will go on, with or without him. It will still end and begin whether he is there to see it, to cause it, or ignore it. For now, it will.

For now. For now. For now.

* * *

_**"Demons" - youtube watch?v=N527oBKIPMc**_

_**The club song (not sorry in any way, shape, or form): "Monster" - Kanye West (ft a shit ton of people): youtube watch?v=2kWuOUijAbc**_

_**Sorry for the weird linking system.**_


End file.
